PROPHET
Is all that there?
PISTHETAERUS
Here, read it yourself, and go and hang yourself.
PROPHET
Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am.
PISTHETAERUS
Away with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere.
METON[1]
I have come to you.
f[1] A celebrated geometrician and astronomer.
PISTHETAERUS
Yet another pest! What have you come to do? What's your plan?
What's the purpose of your journey? Why these splendid buskins?
METON
I want to survey the plains of the air for you and to parcel
them into lots.
PISTHETAERUS
In the name of the gods, who are you?
METON
Who am I? Meton, known throughout Greece and at Colonus.[1]
f[1] A deme contiguous to Athens. It is as though he said, "Well known
throughout all England and at Croydon.
PISTHETAERUS
What are these things?
METON
Tools for measuring the air. In truth, the spaces in the air
have precisely the form of a furnace. With this bent ruler I draw
a line from top to bottom; from one of its points I describe a circle
with the compass. Do you understand?
PISTHETAERUS
Not the very least.
METON
With the straight ruler I set to work to inscribe a square
within this circle; in its centre will be the market-place, into which
all the straight streets will lead, converging to this centre like
a star, which, although only orbicular, sends forth its rays
in a straight line from all sides.
PISTHETAERUS
Meton, you new Thales...[1]
f[1] Thales was no less famous as a geometrician than he was as a sage.
METON
What d'you want with me?
PISTHETAERUS
I want to give you a proof of my friendship. Use your legs.
METON
Why, what have I to fear?
PISTHETAERUS
'Tis the same here as in Sparta. Strangers are driven away,
and blows rain down as thick as hail.
METON
Is there sedition in your city?
PISTHETAERUS
No, certainly not.
METON
What's wrong then?
PISTHETAERUS
We are agreed to sweep all quacks and impostors far from our borders.
METON
Then I'm off.
PISTHETAERUS
I fear 'tis too late. The thunder growls already. (BEATS HIM.)
METON
Oh, woe! oh, woe!
PISTHETAERUS
I warned you. Now, be off, and do your surveying somewhere else.
(METON TAKES TO HIS HEELS.)
AN INSPECTOR
Where are the Proxeni?[1]
f[1] Officers of Athens, whose duty was to protect strangers who came
on political or other business, and see to their interests generally.
PISTHETAERUS
Who is this Sardanapalus?[1]
f[1] He addresses the inspector thus because of the royal
and magnificent manners he assumes.
INSPECTOR
I have been appointed by lot to come to Nephelococcygia.
as inspector.[1]
f[1] Magistrates appointed to inspect the tributary towns.
PISTHETAERUS
An inspector! and who sends you here, you rascal?
INSPECTOR
A decree of T[e]leas.[1]
f[1] A much-despised citizen, already mentioned. He ironically
supposes him invested with the powers of an Archon, which ordinarily
were entrusted only to men of good repute.
PISTHETAERUS
Will you just pocket your salary, do nothing, and be off?
INSPECTOR
I' faith! that I will; I am urgently needed to be at Athens to attend
the assembly; for I am charged with the interests of Pharnaces.[1]
f[1] A Persian satrap. --An allusion to certain orators, who, bribed
with Asiatic gold, had often defended the interests of the foe
in the Public Assembly.
PISTHETAERUS
Take it then, and be off. See, here is your salary. (BEATS HIM.)
INSPECTOR
What does this mean?
PISTHETAERUS
'Tis the assembly where you have to defend Pharnaces.
INSPECTOR
You shall testify that they dare to strike me, the inspector.
PISTHETAERUS
Are you not going to clear out with your urns? 'Tis not to be
believed; they send us inspectors before we have so much as paid
sacrifice to the gods.
A DEALER IN DECREES
"If the Nephelococcygian does wrong to the Athenian..."
PISTHETAERUS
Now whatever are these cursed parchments?
DEALER IN DECREES
I am a dealer in decrees, and I have come here to sell you
the new laws.
PISTHETAERUS
Which?
DEALER IN DECREES
"The Nephelococcygians shall adopt the same weights, measures
and decrees as the Olophyxians."[1]
f[1] A Macedonian people in the peninsula of Chalcidice. This name
is chosen because of its similarity to the Greek word [for] 'to groan.'
It is from another verb, meaning the same thing, that Pisthetaerus coins
the name of Ototyxians, i.e. groaners, because he is about to beat
the dealer. --The mother-country had the right to impose any law
it chose upon its colonies.
PISTHETAERUS
And you shall soon be imitating the Ototyxians. (BEATS HIM.)
DEALER IN DECREES
Hullo! what are you doing?
PISTHETAERUS
Now will you be off with your decrees? For I am going to let YOU
see some severe ones.
INSPECTOR (RETURNING)
I summon Pisthetaerus for outrage for the month of Munychion.[1]
f[1] Corresponding to our month of April.
PISTHETAERUS
Ha! my friend! are you still there?
DEALER IN DECREES
"Should anyone drive away the magistrates and not receive them,
according to the decree duly posted..."
PISTHETAERUS
What! rascal! you are there too?
INSPECTOR
Woe to you! I'll have you condemned to a fine of ten thousand
drachmae.
PISTHETAERUS
And I'll smash your urns.[1]
f[1] Which the inspector had brought with him for the purpose
of inaugurating the assemblies of the people or some tribunal.
INSPECTOR
Do you recall that evening when you stooled against the column where
the decrees are posted?
PISTHETAERUS
Here! here! let him be seized. (THE INSPECTOR RUNS OFF.) Well!
don't you want to stop any longer?
PRIEST
Let us get indoors as quick as possible; we will sacrifice the goat
inside.[1]
f[1] So that the sacrifices might no longer be interrupted.
CHORUS
Henceforth it is to me that mortals must address their
sacrifices and their prayers. Nothing escapes my sight nor my might.
My glance embraces the universe, I preserve the fruit in the flower
by destroying the thousand kinds of voracious insects the soil
produces, which attack the trees and feed on the germ when it has
scarcely formed in the calyx; I destroy those who ravage the balmy
terrace gardens like a deadly plague; all these gnawing crawling
creatures perish beneath the lash of my wing. I hear it proclaimed
everywhere: "A talent for him who shall kill Diagoras of Melos,[1]
and a talent for him who destroys one of the dead tyrants."[2]
We likewise wish to make our proclamation: "A talent to him among you
who shall kill Philocrates, the Struthian;[3] four, if he
brings him to us alive. For this Philocrates skewers the finches
together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He
tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look
bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and
collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a
net, to decoy others." That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone
is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them
loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put
them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy other men.
Happy indeed is the race of winged birds who need no cloak in winter!
Neither do I fear the relentless rays of the fiery dog-days;
when the divine grasshopper, intoxicated with the sunlight, when noon
is burning the ground, is breaking out into shrill melody; my home
is beneath the foliage in the flowery meadows. I winter in deep
caverns, where I frolic with the mountain nymphs, while in spring
I despoil the gardens of the Graces and gather the white, virgin berry
on the myrtle bushes.
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